F!Tabris/Alistair

Warning for implied noncon scenarios, nothing described.

"Why didn't you tell me you were married?"

Alistair's question was one that Tabris had dreaded the moment that Shianni let her ill fated engagement slip. She saw the hurt in his eyes, the betrayal. They were not able to speak of it at the time, too many lives in their hands. Restrictions that no longer applied now that they were back in their rooms of Eamon's estate.

Ash Tabris removed her battle bloodied gauntlets and Starfang setting them on the table to allow her a moment to think. All the while she felt Alistair's gaze burning into her. He was quiet, and that only added to Ash's trepidation as he was usually so chatty. Folding her arms behind her back and settling into the formal stance she adopted when dealing with...unpleasant things, she turned to Alistair.

"You never asked," Tabris explained calmly, "and I was never married, just engaged to a stranger for all of a day."

Alistair seemed to relax at the news that she had never been married and he gave her a small shadow of a smile. "Thats a relief at least. I would hate to be the 'other man' messy business those affairs." The smile vanished after he said this though, eyes filling with questions that Tabris wasn't sure she wanted to answer.

"Still, you should have told me instead of letting me be surprised later." Tabris frowned, but maintained her stance.

"And when precisely should I have said this, Alistair? Blurted it out during battle? At camp in front of everyone?" Ash Tabris questioned, feeling agitated. She could see Alistair's hackles rising.

"I don't know! But you should have said something! Anything! I confide in you constantly yet you never tell me anything! We're together; you should trust me instead of lying to me!" Alistair snapped in an uncharacteristic show of anger, his hands punctuating each word.

Ash's eyes widened momentarily, shocked. But then she saw red, so angry she dropped any pretence of calm and stalked angrily towards the man until she was nose to nose with him, her mouth in a snarl and her eyes locked with his.

"I'm a liar am I?" She hissed, and Alistair swallowed at her look, a look she normally reserved for Darkspawn. "Very well, let us go over the whole sordid affair. I was pushed into an arranged marriage I did not want and the Arls son by the name of Vaughn," She spits the name like its poison in her mouth. "Decided he wanted a whore's entertainment without the work of paying for them. So he came and kidnapped my cousin, myself, and a number of other women from the ceremony."

Tabris shoves Alistair in the shoulder to punctuate her words. "Would you like to hear how I begged like a child for him to free the other women? Or perhaps you would like to know of how I woke up to Shianni crying over me and a bloodied and ripped dress. I wouldn't want you to think I was a liar." She spits the word's and Alistair feels sick from what she is telling him, but Tabris is not done yet.

"Would you like to know of how they cut down the woman who resisted? How they took Shianni to that animal? How I carved a river of blood through that beast's estate? Oh no, thats not the important part to you, oh no, you want to know the part about my betrothed, that is clearly the most important." Tabris's hands shake as she jabs him with an accusing finger, still not breaking eye contact.

"Know that a man who had met me no less than an hour ago and had no fighting experience died storming that Shem's estate to try and save me, a stranger who would have abandon him at the altar and not given a care." Tabris's brow furrows from holding back the turbulent emotions and pain at the memory, but she soldiers on.

"In the end it didn't even matter, Shianni was raped and I gutted him like the dog he was, damning the consequences. I carried her back with Soris and when the guards came for me I was ready to die, but then Duncan stepped forward and I died anyway...Albeit the slow death of a Warden." Tabris let out a breath, all anger seemingly gone out of her at the end of her tale, instead replaced with an insurmountable weariness. She turned her back on Alistair while he stood there agape at her tale.

"So that's it. We're raped and killed and we should just be grateful they do no worse. You saw what defending ourselves brings today." Tabris said bitterly and Alistair did know, he saw the slaves, the burned ruins of buildings, the haggard faces…

Tabris rubbed a hand over her face and sighed deeply before turning back to Alistair. "I shouldn't have taken my anger out on you. Alistair, I am so sor-" Alistair did not let her finish that sentence.

Grabbing her by the arm, he yanked her into his arms, embracing the woman he loved. He closed his eyes against her hair and he felt her relax into his embrace slowly. "Don't you dare finish that sentence. Don't you even think about it. You just let that thought die." He murmured into her hair.

Quietly, tears began to slowly drip down Ash Tabris's face as she buried her face into her lover's embrace.